A Detroit, Michigan fifth-grader’s float design debuts in America’s Thanksgiving Day parade, birds showing signs of recovery, and how speaking multiple languages seems to slow aging are a few of the interesting stories I’ve read and enjoyed in the past month.
I hope you enjoy them, too!
What I Found Interesting
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Lyric Weathers was one of hundreds of 4th to 8th grade Detroit students who submitted drawings to the 34th Skillman Foundation Float Design Contest for America’s Thanksgiving Parade.
Imagine how excited she was to learn her “Cultures are Around the World” design was chosen as the grand prize winner!
The float was built by The Parade Company and debuts at the Detroit parade on Thursday, November 27, 2025.
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I was glad to read this good news about France’s birds starting to show signs of recovery after bee-harming pesticide was banned.
By 2022, four years after the European Union banned neonicotinoid use in fields, researchers observed that France’s population of insect-eating birds had increased by 2%-3%.
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Developed by researchers at Novartis, a new malaria drug shows success in a large clinical trial in Africa.
Over 1,600 malaria patients across 12 African countries were treated for three days, resulting in 99.2% of those treated being cured.
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Yet another reason to consider learning a new language: speaking two languages seems to slow aging, speaking three or more augments the effect.
According to data from more than 86,000 people across 27 European countries, speaking another language can help maintain cognitive functions.
The researchers found:
…people who use only one language were approximately twice as likely to experience accelerated aging, whereas multilingual individuals were on average about half as likely to do so.
